If you go
What: “Away,” an installation by Heather Fortin Rubald
When: Feb. 18-April 30; artist talk at 6 p.m. March 10; spring gift boxes workshop at 5 p.m. March 23, $40-$50, registration required
Where: Loveland Museum, Green Room Gallery, 503 N. Lincoln Ave., Loveland
Cost: Admission to the museum is free, donations welcome; admission to the Main Gallery is $5
More info: lovelandmuseumgallery.org
After a shopping trip to Target or Safeway, the plastic bags that customers carry their items in are often stuffed away. Some may find ways to get rid of the bags. Others may just let the bag pile grow. But Heather Fortin Rubal of Loveland creates.
From purses to 10-foot tall trees, Rubald finds ways to keep the bags out of landfills and turn them into works of art.
“I am not so much an environmentalist as much as I am a person who doesn’t like to see things wasted,” Rubald said.
From her childhood making things out of dish soap bottles to her time in theater creating sets from found objects, Rubald has always had a knack for finding uses for what others through away.
Her installation and exhibition “Away” will be up from Feb. 18 through April 30 at the Loveland Museum, 503 N. Lincoln Ave., in Loveland. Half of the museum’s Green Room Gallery will be transformed into a forest made of bags while the other side will showcase all the ways plastic bags can be transformed into useful items.
“The title comes from this great bumper sticker I got since I moved here,” Rubald said, “‘When you throw something way, where is away.'”
An assignment from the universe
The idea to start using plastic bags came out of necessity. Taught by her grandmothers, Rubald had always knitted and crocheted.
“I was working with yarn making hats and scarves … and then I ran out of yarn,” she said. Money was tight and her mother just happened to mention a bag she had gotten made of plastic.
“When you’re used to doing something with your hands, and creating and doing and are in the habit of it, I just started messing around,” she said. After creating one item all her bags were gone, but then she mentioned her new medium to a few people.
“As soon as I talked to people about it, they were so enthusiastic about the product but more so of giving me their bags,” she said, “Everybody has a drawer or cabinet or something like that weighing on their conscience, and so it kind of felt like an assignment from the universe to stick with it.”
The endless supply of free materials offered Rubald the chance to expand. She went beyond crocheting to fusing the plastic and sewing it together which opened a whole new world of options.
“A lot of people think they are leather until they touch them,” she said of the technique.
The new material, which also includes recycled video tape, did offer some challenges but fewer than one might think.
“One of the things is in the crochet and sewing … it doesn’t slide past itself as easy,” she said. There is a lot more drag to it than yarn, which makes it a little harder on both humans and machines.
“I developed an overhand version, even with the lowest gauge there’s a lot of drag,” she said. The heavy duty sewing machine she uses needs more regular tune ups, as the timing gets off.
Over the last few years, Rubald’s creations went from the practical side to the more artistic.
“One of the things that changed is that I started with functional objects, I didn’t consider myself an artist,” she said. In the beginning she often made items that people could use, such as bags and purses. Then she started to experiment.
“Most of everything that will be in this exhibition will be me going, ‘I wonder if I can,’ or, ‘Let’s see if it will do this,'” she said.
5,000 bags
The show will include a mix of old and new. The oldest piece in the show is a piece called “Before Midnight,” a dress of plastic bags, whereas the installation section mostly will be new. The inspiration for the show came from a 10-foot tree that Rubald created outside her apartment at Artspace Loveland, a series of lofts and workspaces for artists in the community. Rubald is creating a new tree that fits the space in the museum. She is guessing that the whole exhibit will use about 5,000 plastic bags.
Rubald doesn’t try to hide the material she uses. It may take a minute for someone to notice, but the logos for the stores the bags come from are there to see.
“There’s a lot of psychology and artistry that goes into the logos on those bags,” she said. They are recognizable to people and add another layer to the experience.
“I like to show the origins, the edges to be rough,” she said.
Rubald is focusing her art on what the bags can become as opposed to what they can do to the environment.
“There is something positive out there. There are still good things,” she said of her art. “Whatever you think about the country right now, it’s not very united United States … I want it to feel like a refuge, but also an inspiration to think about what you waste, and think about what you could be doing with it instead.”
Rubald will demonstrate how her art-making process works during a workshop that’s planned for 5-7 p.m. on March 23.
Rubald is finding that she enjoys creating the more artistic pieces.
“I know it’s the bags that are the interesting part, but hopefully the art will get better and better,” she said.
Rubald likes that her chosen material lends a unique quality to her work, but she wants her art to be able to stand on its own.
“My hope as I develop as an artist is that it will be a really cool component but that the art is good enough by itself. That it could be made out of more traditional materials and still be notable,” she said.
She hopes the show will be inspirational and fun for people and maybe a little eye-opening.
“I think people will be surprised what can be done with a pile of trash,” she said.
Michelle Vendegna: 970-699-5407, vendegnam@reporterherald.com
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